


Mr and Mrs Norris

by bionically



Series: Love Fest 2020 [10]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Allusions to Miscarriage, Angst, Argus Filch is a good person, F/M, I promise, I've hottified him, Mentions of Pregnancy, Soulmates, The feels, Time Travel, Transfiguration, humor but also tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:20:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22839211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bionically/pseuds/bionically
Summary: She wasn't supposed to be in this time period, much less fall for him. No matter what the stars say.#TeamAphrodite #lf2020
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Argus Filch
Series: Love Fest 2020 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643674
Comments: 18
Kudos: 43
Collections: Love Fest 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Disenchantedglow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Disenchantedglow/gifts).



> This was inspired by Aiman Rubab's prompt on Fairest of the Rare Love Fest 2020: Hermione/Filch, Soulmates. 
> 
> Beta'd and alpha'd by the fantastic disenchantedglow, whose fault this entire thing is. I have no idea if this was supposed to be a crack prompt, but @disenchantedglow and I sat down and discussed this pairing, laughing the whole time. The next day, both of us started writing this cursed ship. This is how cursed ships are launched. I hope you give this a chance. I promise to make you fall for Argus Filch.

**Part I**

Hermione first became an Animagus at the age of thirty-one. 

Her first thought when she looked down at her four-legged self was that she would never hear the end of the jokes now. Ron had taken to comparing her to "old cat ladies" since she had completely lost interest in dating. On top of that were the similarities between her current self and her ill-fated Polyjuice transformation in second year. Hermione almost wanted to rethink this entire Animagus bit.

She was still regarding her furry striped cat limbs when she felt a tingling in her spine. Since she was adjusting to _being_ a cat, with everything that came with turning into one, including the need to lick the fur sticking up on top of her paw, she ignored it. Then it happened again, that tingling in her navel. 

The next thing she knew, she was being pulled through the dimensions of reality.

* * *

When Hermione came to, all she knew was that she had never felt worse in her life. She not only wanted to puke out her insides, she wanted to scrape out her brains with a spoon. With the nausea and the headache, she found that she didn't give two sickles that she wasn't the shape of a cat anymore. The fact that she was stark naked should have been worrying, but it faded in importance next to the distant hope of dying.

Trembling in a huddle on the floor and holding back her vomit, she tried to breathe as evenly as possible. Had she been transported by a dark wizard? To think she had been so complacent in recent years. _Constant vigilance_ was too bloody right.

A soft padding of footsteps from the periphery of her eyes brought a pair of scuffed, brown boots into view. 

Hermione willed herself not to panic and lifted her head hesitantly. The boots were topped with leather trews, the kind the older generation of wizards preferred when working with alchemy. It took all the energy she possessed to look further up to see a youngish man—well, around her age, at least—standing there with a wary expression and a wand held defensively high.

The body language and expression reassured her. She managed to sputter out, "I'm going to vomit," before she sprayed the contents of her stomach all over the floor and his boots.

* * *

By the time Hermione was herself again, the vomit had vanished from the floor, and a blanket was draped modestly around her. She sat on a small stool inside what was clearly a workshop. A fireplace dominated one wall, surrounded by a variety of metalsmithing tools. 

"Alright now?" the man said tentatively, keeping a safe distance away from her. 

"Yes, I think so." Hermione, finished with looking about the place, made sure her stomach wasn’t going to rebel on her again before she turned in the man’s direction. He stared back at her with similarly wide-eyed curiosity. 

He was fairly normal looking, with a defined, sharp jaw and a patrician nose. Fair hair brushed back into smooth waves. Tall and lean in build. He looked innocuous, but Hermione had no intention of being fooled by anyone's appearance. 

Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, he was no one she recognised, he had a British accent, and she was the one naked and without a wand here.

"Who are you?" Hermione asked in her calmest, most measured voice. "Where am I? And can I borrow a wand to change these into clothes?"

"Er—call me Gus." He coughed politely into his fist. His cheeks were pink after a downward glance at her clearly abbreviated state of attire. "And here—" He took a single step forward before stretching out his arm, keeping the rest of his body a respectful distance away. In his hand was his wand, the handle pointed out towards her and the length tucked alongside his arm.

Hermione gaped at him, making no move to take the wand. Who was this completely naïve stranger who didn't think twice about handing over his wand to a witch? 

Then she recollected herself and her unclothed, vulnerable state and took the wand from him, sliding the handle inch by inch from his hand, trying not to touch any part of him.

When she looked down, she almost dropped the blanket and fell out of her stool.

She was holding the Elder Wand in her grasp.

* * *

"Why do _you_ have the Elder Wand?"

Gus looked in surprise at Hermione, who was now standing before him, the blanket haphazardly transformed into makeshift clothing to cover her. She was also pointing the wand at him.

"Er, the what?"

"The _Elder_ wand. I _recognise_ it." She was more defensive than she would have been in her younger years. Anyone wielding the Elder wand could be up to no good, and no one had the ability to forestall him. Her hand was slightly shaky with the implication. Harry had thrown it away; she had seen him.

But the wand was unmistakable, knobbed in sections and the colour of old bones. The likeness of it was etched inside her brain.

His hands were raised defensively on either side of his shoulders, and he looked bemused at her aggressiveness. "Er...it was—well, that was the wand that chose me.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Gregorovitch didn't say anything about it being the Elder Wand."

At the name of that wandmaker who had been dead for over a decade, Hermione plopped back down on her stool, the hand holding the wand wavering slightly but still lifted against any potential threats. "What—what year is this?" She rubbed her forehead. She still had a headache, which meant it wasn’t _just_ a Portkey that transported her here. No wonder she felt horrible. Her stomach hadn’t finished lurching. 

"It's 1923," he said, carefully enunciating the syllables, not lowering his hands. "And...you?"

The hair on the back of Hermione's neck rose at his words, and she slowly looked up, her fingers tightening around the wand. He did _not_ sound surprised to hear her question, and certainly any wizard confronted with a naked person asking the date would have been more than a bit disconcerted. "2010," she said slowly, watching him warily.

His mouth formed a small O of surprise, and then he scratched his head and laughed a little. "The millennium. Er. I was born not shortly before the first one, so…"

"You're not surprised by what I said. Why?" Her fingers slid down and bumped up against one of the knots on the wood as she rotated the wand in her hand. It felt strange and uncomfortable in her hand, and Hermione dearly wished to have her own wand back. 

His eyes didn't miss her action or her clenched grip and he spread his hands helplessly, as though he had no good answers for her. A wry smile lifted one side of his mouth. "I'm the reason you're here. I called you here."

He looked so very diffident and inoffensive, but Hermione wasn’t buying it. "Why would you do that?" Her voice was even.

"Because." There was something final about that word, as though he didn't want to explain himself. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "You're my soulmate."

* * *

Hermione couldn't help but laugh for a solid minute.

Her knee bounced up and down impatiently and she leveled him with a Look. "There's no such thing as soulmates. Try another one."

He looked equally surprised by everything; her laughter and her disbelief. "Of course there are. I used the Soulmate Spell—"

“What’s the incantation?”

He inclined his head towards a table, as though asking for permission, and Hermione frowned and nodded, watching his every move. He flipped through the text, which was a very weatherbeaten leatherbound book, and turned it around to show her the printed page, along with the underlined words. Hermione inched closer so she could see, her eyes dancing quickly over the page.

“Hmm,” she said. “That—book—looks interesting, but I find the whole concept very dubious. It shouldn’t have been what pulled me here. Across _decades_. I’ve never heard of it in my time, and I’ve read almost all the magical texts there are.” She didn’t bother to tell him that two wars had decimated a lot of the magical texts and what there were now were in private libraries.

“Clearly not _all_ ,” he muttered under his breath.

“—which _means_ ,” Hermione said, shooting him a glare. “You've just called me all the way across the better part of a century for _nothing_. Now—"

"Just because you don't believe in it—"

"Because there's no such thing!"

"—doesn't mean it doesn't exist.” He folded his arms across his chest. There was a pugnacious expression on his face. “What are you, a Muggle?" It was his turn to laugh at his own joke, while Hermione continued to glare at him. His laugh trailed off. "You know, because they don't believe—"

" _I know what you meant!"_ Hermione shouted. "And it's incredibly offensive of you, given that I'm a Muggleborn and the two wars that happened—"

Gus lost his smile and blinked at her. "What?"

" _I'm_ a _Muggleborn_." Her expression dared him to make an offensive comment. The wand in her hand was back up and leveled under his nose.

He shook his head, completely nonchalant about her defensive stance in a way that only children were in her time. Clearly he hadn’t been lying about the timeline and growing up unused to warfare. "No, before that. You said something about wars. _Two_ of them?"

Damn. Hermione’d forgotten the first rule of time travel: Never interfere with the past. She was certain telling someone about impending wars would create lasting ripples. 

She edged backwards until the back of her knees bumped against her stool, and she dropped back down into her seat. It seemed to be the only familiar thing here, and her legs were still shaky from her massive vomit attack. “Alright,” she said with a sigh, and lowering her hand to her knee. "Tell me about the charm that brought me here. All of it. Everything that’s not written down."

According to Gus and the entire wizarding community in 1923, soulmates were all everyone talked about. The Soulmate Charm was used in conjunction with the designation spell to locate a soulmate’s whereabouts by marking them. In certain circumstances, it'd been known to draw the two together across time.

Hermione snorted with disbelief. "And I suppose you have this 'mark'?" She couldn’t help wiggling her fingers in air quotes.

He pulled his left sleeve up to show her a light blue smudge on the inside of his left wrist. "This showed up the first time I did the ritual."

Hermione surveyed his arm in silence. A birthmark. _That_ was his undeniable proof of soulmate-hood? No wonder Pureblood wizards had to intermingle with Muggles to stay sane. They would believe anything. And they called _Muggles_ gullible. She pursed her lips and took a deep breath. Yep. She’d heard enough. "Alright. How far is it from Hogwarts? I think that's where I need to be."

"You have the mark, too, don't you?" Gus asked. Before Hermione knew what he was going to do, he had reached forward to grab hold of her left hand.

"What—hey!"

On the inside of her left wrist _was_ a birthmark, which was why she didn’t believe in soulmate markings. There was also her scar from the war, now much diminished due to Fading Potions. Either way, her left arm was starting to hold a collection of unsightly blemishes. 

"You have it too." His hazel eyes were wide with suppressed excitement, going from her arm to her face. He hadn't let go of her wrist.

Hermione gingerly pulled free. "It's a _birthmark_. I've had it since I was born."

"Because of the ritual.” His response was matter-of-fact, and Hermione had to suppress the groan bubbling up in her chest.

It was always the normal-looking ones. "Exactly how many times have you done this ritual?"

"Every year since I turned twenty-five," he said with a small shrug. "I'm not getting any younger. Wizards are only living to two hundred now."

"But I’m confused about one thing. It doesn’t say anything about time travel. Why would it pull me through time?"

"I’ve my own theories about that. Have you ever heard of the Entanglement Concept?"

Hermione shook her head and stared blankly at him. 

"Essentially what it says is this: some soulmate relationships are fragmented through time and space, but as long as their lives overlap, it creates enough consonance to create a _soulmate connection_ . Under the proper time and conditions, the ritual _could_ pull you through time and space to me."

"This time period is much too concerned with soulmates,” she said. _Consonance. Overlap_ , he had said. Hermione turned the concepts over in her head. “Wait. Our lives overlap in real time? So...you’re an old man when I’m born then.”

He looked mildly offended by her dismissal. “Wizards live to two hundred years old. I’d still be in the prime of life at one hundred, I’ll have you know.”

The thought of a baby Hermione with a one hundred year old was still fairly disgusting to her. She surveyed him with a frown. He looked—she had no idea how old he was. “How old are you?”

“I just turned thirty-one,” he said.

“Me too,” she said slowly. “That can’t be a coincidence. But why thirty-one? Why now? Why not earlier in my life? Why not later?"

"I don't know. Maybe thirty-one is a magical number?"

Hermione huffed out a slow puff of air, shaking her head. "And I _just_ became an Animagus, too."

His eyes lit up. "That's it. That’s the answer.”

Hermione still didn’t see how that had anything to do with the Soulmate Spell, which was a damnably rackety notion if there was any. She gestured impatiently for him to continue.

He ignored the look of patent disbelief on her face. “It has to do with elements of transfiguration and alchemy,” he said patiently. “An Animagus transforms by rearranging all the particles of his being and _essence_ into something else. It’s far more than transfiguration, which is transformation into an inanimate object--which suspends you in time. As an Animagus, when your physicality changes so drastically, for a moment all the components you’re comprised of split apart, and you become nothing but a collection of elements— _things_ —lighter than air—”

“Atoms?”

“Which then, combined with magic calling you--as I did with the spell--can pull you across time and space.”

“You’re saying that Animagi can time travel more readily than other wizards? That’s—quite a theory,” she said. Though her arms were folded across her chest, she couldn’t help but stare at him with interest. Professor McGonagall, when giving her the Time-Turner back in her third year, had gone into great detail about how some people are _chosen_ by elements of time. Something about her speech at the time had made Hermione think that the professor was no stranger to time travel. In which case...Gus was actually saying something that _might_ hold some basis.

Even if he was clearly someone who put too much in store by divination ( _soulmates_ , really?), he was also saying very interesting theories that she had only briefly heard of. Time-Turners had been completely defunct by the end of the War when she had graduated from Hogwarts.

He scratched his head and chuckled a bit in boyish self-deprecation at her mild approval. “It’s not completely a surprise. Changing your physical form changes everything about you, rearranges your physicality in a way that goes beyond mere identity.” When he looked up at her, his expression dared her to argue with his logic. “This proves it. It proves that we’re soulmates. While I’ve been performing this spell for the past seven years, the first time it’s been able to pull you through was when you became an Animagus. Literally, _minutes_ after.”

Hermione looked at him uneasily.

Gus shrugged and leaned back against the table. If she knew him better, she might have labelled his entire posture and expression _smug_. "You were always meant to be pulled back in time on this date."

* * *

"So who _are_ you?" Hermione asked.

They were sitting down at his cluttered table eating bread and cheese with a pottage soup. Rather medieval fare, actually, but her stomach was empty and shaky after her time travelling session. Hermione decided that traipsing off to Hogwarts could wait until she had more information and food.

"Argus Norris."

She chewed the hard bread for a moment in thought. “I knew an Argus Filch. He had a cat named Mrs. Norris."

"Filch is a Squib name,” he said. “Filch or Figgs or Fipps. It’s their identifier, imbued with a protective charm. It marks them so that they are untouched and unharmed by wizards. Without it, they’d be nothing but Muggles or worse--targets for Muggle-haters.” 

Hermione nodded in agreement. "He _was_ a Squib. He was Caretaker of Hogwarts when I was there.”

"That's a funny coincidence," he said. "More proof of our connection." He smiled in a way that was clearly meant to be winsome and charming. 

Hermione was completely unaffected. She snorted. “Since you’re eighty-some years into my past, I’m sure our worlds will overlap in multiple ways. Who knows? Maybe Argus Filch is your descendant." She smirked at him.

He blinked. “It’s not unlikely. There’s nothing wrong with Squibs in any case. But it’s my opinion that they should live in the Muggle world, where there are more opportunities for them. When was he born, the man you knew?”

"I'm not sure." Squibs were usually left out of any wizarding texts like their presence was an anomaly. Argus Filch could have been Caretaker for seventy years for all she knew. His name had never crossed the pages of _Hogwarts: A History._ "Felt like he was seventy? Eighty?" 

“Squibs do live, on average, a longer lifespan than Muggles. It’s not impossible for him to still be working at Hogwarts at eighty. Was he seventy years old in 2010?"

She shook her head. "I really couldn’t tell you. I mean—I felt like he was seventy when I first met him. In 1991."

Gus—she couldn't think of him as Argus—mumbled under his breath in thought before nodding. "Right. In which case, the numbers add up. He _could_ be our child."

" _Ugh!"_ The exclamation was torn out of Hermione.

He watched her with apprehension. "Well, we _are_ soulmates. You might as well accept it. Most people do, eventually.”

“I mean, I don’t want to imagine _that man_ as my child.” Hermione shuddered. “ _You_ don’t come into it.”

“Because he’s a Squib?”

“No, because he was a horrible human being! All he ever cared about was his mangy, mean cat. He hated children—I have no idea why he even got a job at a school. Dumbledore—" Hermione broke off and snapped her fingers. "I need to talk to Dumbledore."

Gus's eyebrows rose. "You can’t mean Percival Dumbledore? Or did you mean Aberforth, who’s the head of the family now?”

“No—Professor...I mean, Albus Dumbledore.”

“The Diviner?"

"What?"

"He's—well, he's the one who developed the Soulmate Spell.”

“ _What?”_

* * *

Albus Dumbledore was the creator of many a spell, but in 1923, he was known as the Diviner for the spell that had taken the wizarding community by storm. It was a spell designed to find the other half of yourself—or some such nonsense.

Hermione couldn’t believe she had revered the man for so long without knowing this aspect of him. Of course, she _had_ known of his particular affinity for divination and prophecies. She shouldn’t hold _this_ incident against him.

“Well, then,” she said after Gus’s explanation. She pulled her ill-fitting cloak tighter around her and straightened. “He’s the man we need to speak to.”

Gus stared at his feet for a very long time after that before looking up and nodding. He wasn’t smiling now, and Hermione realized that up until then, he always wore a very cheerful expression. He seemed like he was someone optimistic and easygoing; traits that were not common in Hermione’s time. Obviously, he was also persistent, given his tenacity in performing this spell at the same time every year for seven years. That was more time than Hermione had given _Ron_ to confess his feelings to her.

1923 was clearly a happy time for the wizarding world. No wars, no Grindelwald, no Voldemort. She’d probably be just as light-hearted if she lived in this time period.

“Look…” she said slowly, her hands fluttering helplessly. _It’s not personal_ , she wanted to explain. _It’s not you I object to._ It was this entire concept of soulmates and staying forever in another time.

His hands, strong, tanned hands used to metalworking, turned his knobby wand over in his hands. There was a crease between his brows, and Hermione almost felt a surge of pity for him, for wishing so hard for a soulmate that he could accept the prospect of someone he didn’t even know.

He glanced up finally, and their eyes met. Up until then, Hermione had always considered brown eyes boring. All around her, there were people with grey and blue and green eyes, and her own colouring seemed so bland in comparison. 

For the first time, staring at Gus’s clear hazel eyes that was almost like looking into a warm cup of tea, Hermione considered that brown eyes weren’t so terrible after all. They looked so warm and open and pleasant. She almost felt a prick of guilt at running roughshod over his objections and dismissing all his romantic ideas so quickly out of hand.

“Listen...Hermione.” He spoke slowly, as though he were carefully picking out the right words to say. “I honestly didn’t even know what I expected when you fell through the sky like that. I’ve been casting that spell for six years, and it’s never worked. I guess I thought that perhaps I didn’t have a soulmate.” He laughed self-deprecatingly; a soft, light sound.. “Albus, though, he swore by the charm.”

“Did he?” Hermione asked, raising her eyebrows. Albus Dumbledore’s biography had never mentioned any emotional ties other than the odd friend or two. “Does he have a soulmate then?”

Gus nodded. “Gellert. Gellert Grindelwald. That’s how he knew it worked. They’re thick as thieves. They’re very alike in a lot of ways, but…” His gaze fell away, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “Anyway, I don’t want you to feel as though you’re bound to me. This is—this type of connection should be mutual. You know?”

He looked at her with those intense eyes, with something pleading behind them, but also resigned, as though he already knew what her response would be. He wasn’t trying to argue with her in the slightest, and that was different.

Everyone argued with her. 

She smiled at him. “You’re—a very nice person, Gus,” she began and sputtered when he snorted in response. “You are! I’m not making fun of you.”

“It sounds like you’re trying to reject me. Isn’t that the classic line?”

“Well…” she trailed off, not knowing what else to say to not sound completely cold and heartless.

“And, yes, I’m aware that it was bad etiquette to pull you from your life in the future.” He sighed, and there was a thread of wistfulness in his voice when he spoke. “Is it—is it very nice in the future?”

“Er, well.” She tried to think of what she could tell him. “I’ve—already told you about the wars.” She sighed. If she stayed here any longer, who knows what else would slip out of her and potentially affect the future?  
  


“Wars aren’t so very bad if it only affects the Muggles,” he said and he raised both hands defensively when she glared at him. “I just meant that it doesn’t affect the wizarding community! Not that I’m going about actively hunting down Muggles.”

“No, it wasn’t Muggle wars, though there’s also—a few of those as well.” She sighed. 1923 was looking better than ever. There would be at least two decades before WWII. 

“Do…” His mouth twisted as though he were considering his question and whether to ask it before he apparently decided to go for broke. “Do you have a husband? Children? Is--is _that_ why?”

“Oh, _no,”_ she said. “Nothing like that. I’m a career woman. I just went back to school to master Transfiguration.”

“Ah. The Animagus thing, right.” He rose to his feet, but didn’t advance on her. He held out his hand to her with a smile.

If his smile looked a bit forlorn, she didn’t address it. She looked away and shifted awkwardly before realising she still held his wand. “Oh, right. Er—here.”

He took the wand from her. “Thank you. The Elder wand, you said?”

“I honestly thought it belonged to Grindelwald at some point,” Hermione said, tilting her head to the side in thought. “But biographies have been known to be wrong.”

He was nodding, his mind undoubtedly already elsewhere. “So, Dumbledore?”

* * *

Albus Dumbledore in 1923 was a handsome tall young man with blazing blue eyes. He pulsed with restlessness and energy and a full schedule. They had to owl ahead to make an appointment with Albus and wait a further three days before he could see them.

After a full three days with her supposed soulmate, Hermione almost didn’t want to admit to herself that Gus Norris was really a _very_ nice person. She had, in fact, never met anyone so gentlemanly. Perhaps it had to do with the time period, in which case she could understand the allure of staying in 1923. She had stopped dating for _very_ good reasons, after all. Men who would not hesitate to rudely treat your living room like it was a hotel being one of them.

Warlock Dumbledore had an office within the Ministry, which in 1923 was a brightly lit, airy building, unlike the dark, tomblike ordeal it was in Hermione’s time. His office, like the Headmaster’s office at Hogwarts, was decorated with a variety of portraits and contained a tiny, red-gold bird with long tail feathers.

The moment Hermione saw the bird, her eyes widened and she exclaimed, “Fawkes!” before she headed straight towards him.

That got Albus’s attention like nothing would have. “I just got him last week,” he said, standing up and surveying Hermione curiously, leaning one hip against his desk. “And I don’t believe we’ve met.” His inquisitive bright blue eyes were fixed on her face.

“Er…” she said, stopping just short of Fawkes’s perch. The urge to confide everything to her former Headmaster was overwhelming. He was dead in her time, but Harry had trusted him implicitly. On the other hand, she wouldn’t know where to start if she began to speak. She glanced helplessly at Gus, who nodded his understanding at her quandary.

Gus closed the door behind him with a loud click and moved farther into the room. “She’s my soulmate. At least according to your spell.”

Distracted, Albus looked away from Hermione, and she subsided with relief behind a chair. “Ah, it worked for you then. Good. Glad to hear it.” Albus rounded his desk and in passing slapped Gus on the back with a heartiness that made Gus lurch.

“Well,” Hermione said. “Not exactly, Pro--Warlock.”

“It’s pulled her from the future,” Gus said.

Albus, clearly thinking that they were only here to discuss a spell that no longer interested him, had turned away and began to flip through papers on his desk. At Gus’s comment, he paused and whirled around, his eyes immediately finding Hermione and raking her over more thoroughly this time. She could tell that he was thinking rapidly and almost took a step back from the intensity of his eyes. “The future.” The word was whispered with a sharp, yet soft reverence.

“Eighty-seven years into the future, to be exact,” Gus said, and Hermione nodded.

“Well,” Albus said softly. “Well! That does complicate things, doesn’t it?”

* * *

“So,” Hermione said, the word falling harshly into the silence that had prevailed.

The room was not meant to hold extended, heated debate. Both of the men had taken off their outer robes and rolled up their sleeves. Hermione herself was concentrating on trying to stay calm. She took several long deep breaths to prevent herself from crying in front of two young, strange men. “Basically, you’re saying I can’t go back.”

Albus spread his hands. “Which is why I have disassociated myself from the spell entirely. It’s much too dangerous. Divination indeed.” His own lips were pressed thinly together, and Hermione suddenly recalled a line from his biography where he had had a falling out with his “childhood friend.” Apparently not all had been tickety-boo with his supposed soulmate, his childhood friend Gellert Grindelwald.

“Listen,” Gus said softly, persuasively, his voice intruding upon the small silence that had fallen. Hermione looked up to see him giving her a concerned sideways glance. She glimpsed a line of worry between his brows before Gus leaned in towards Albus, his hand gesturing towards the notes on the table. “There must be a way. You developed the spell; you know it intimately.”

“All I know is that it was never meant to call people across time. I had no idea what I was doing when I factored in the notion of _consonance_. Given that wizards live to be two hundred years old or more, consonance could span an entire millenium. Can you fathom the implications?”

Gus and Hermione shared a glance before turning back to Albus. “Yes, I’ve an inkling,” Hermione said dryly at the same time Gus said, “It might have occurred to me in passing.”

“Therefore—”

Gus rose to his feet, putting him taller than the warlock bent over the desk. “You developed the spell.” His tone was no longer persuasive but held a hard edge. A stubborn look of determination crossed his face. “You have to try to help her.”

Albus was in the middle of helplessly spreading his hands when Gus spoke in a dangerously soft way. “Look, fix the problem, or I’ll call for your removal from office. This isn’t the first time your ‘spells’ have landed someone in trouble.”

Albus’s eyebrows rose; Hermione blinked at Gus, wondering what else had happened to make him take such a tone with Albus Dumbledore. To her knowledge, there had never been anyone who had dared stand up to Albus Dumbledore. If nothing else, Gus seemed absolutely fearless.

He also didn’t give up. “According to the Wizengamot Warlock Functionality of Office Protocol, a wizard can be considered—”

“Unfit for office,” Albus said softly. His blue eyes were no longer intense but sympathetic as he took in the tense lines of Gus’s face. “Yes, I’m aware of the regulations. Alright. We’ll experiment. But I cannot promise anything.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that this part of the story deals with Hermione's magical pregnancy in which there are abnormal (magical) complications.

**Part II**

**_A year later_ **

“Mrs Norris, where are you?” a singsong voice called through the house before the tapping of footsteps sounded, and a low rumble of laughter followed.

Hermione could only stare dumbly up at Gus from her lower vantage point and meow miserably.

Gus was already a tall man, but he looked even more enormous to her when she was a cat. He chuckled as he crouched down next to the table to look at her furry figure. She slowly came out to meet him, and he scooped her up, carefully cradling her lower belly. His fingers brushed against her ticklish spot at her sides and she hissed at him indignantly.

“Sorry,” he said before carrying her over to the rocking chair and sitting down. “Is this better?”

Hermione offered up a reluctant purr.

They rocked back and forth in silence for a while without either of them attempting to break the silence. His hand continuously stroked her head and back. “It’s happened again, hasn’t it?” Gus said finally. “You keep on spontaneously turning into a cat.”

She didn’t bother to dignify that with a response when it was so blatantly obvious.

He sighed a little at her mopiness, and his hand lifted from her back. “I’m sorry you’ve been so miserable during this pregnancy. I think—the Healers didn’t have any suggestions to make about this, and none of the Animagi we’ve spoken to had anything to add.” He sounded as though he were leading up to something, so she looked up at him expectantly. “I’ve a suggestion, actually. I think we should go talk to Albus.”

There was no one there to offer a better alternative, so she allowed him to rock her for another minute while she thought.

In the year that she had been trapped in time, she had become resigned to her fate of being stuck in the past. It hadn’t been easy, but seeing Gus’s every effort to send her back to her own time had softened her towards him. 

Perhaps it was inevitable what followed, to succumb to each other when they lived in such close confines. The light in his eyes had grown stronger every day she had known him, and she was similarly aware that she had never  _ liked  _ another man as much as she liked him. 

Was it love? Maybe it was. Hermione didn’t know if she understood what love was. Was it this need to see him smile, to make him laugh, to want to hold his hand and care for him? Or the fact that she simply admired him—a lot? 

There were so many aspects of his character that she found pleasing and admirable, from his ready ability to accept others, to how genuinely interested he was in her many research projects. If she believed in fate, or soulmates, would she perhaps  _ want  _ hers to be someone like him?

It was a difficult concept to wrap one’s mind around. Did she  _ want  _ to like him because she had to, and because she was dependent on him? Was he only pleasant to her because he considered her his soulmate? It was difficult to predict just how things would have been in another time, under different circumstances. She probably was even more so adamant against the Soulmate Spell now than ever before, because of all the additional questions that were raised due to this random designation of a  _ person  _ who was supposed to mean something to you.

On the other hand, there was just no denying that they got on in a strange way that she had never felt with anyone else. It was simply so  _ easy  _ to like him. Their conversations were seldom contentious, and even when she was her most domineering self, he backed down and let her have her say in a way that instantly quelled her annoyance. One could even say she felt spoiled by his manners. Even  _ cherished. _

In short, over time she had grown accustomed to her fate, since it appeared that it was unchangeable. She was never returning to 2010.

Now, though, she was pregnant and miserable. The constant uncontrollable transfiguration into her Animagus self was becoming tedious.

Albus’s inability to send her back to her time hadn’t raised up her estimation of his abilities. Hermione had doubts he could do anything about her pregnancy woes, but when she stayed a cat for an entire week without being able to change herself back, she gave up and pawed Argus’s hand to indicate to him her change of mind.

As expected, Albus Dumbledore was unable to offer much help. 

“Given the fact that there are more  _ male  _ Animagus than female, this has not been an oft-reported issue,” Albus said, tapping a finger to his bottom lip thoughtfully, as though Hermione were a laboratory experiment rather than a miserable pregnant woman who was sick of hairballs. “On top of that, Hermione is a  _ special  _ case, being from a different time. No, I’m afraid whatever befalls her is individual and very specific. We cannot assume anything from the cases that have gone before her.”

Gus didn’t look at Hermione, but she knew from the indentation in his cheek that he was aware of her “I told you so” look, even in cat form.

* * *

Turning into a pregnant cat was irritating but still acceptable since she would turn back to her human form, even if it happened to be a spontaneous transfiguration and not under her own magical power. 

It was when Gus found Hermione shivering on the ground, her midriff pulsing with light, that they began to feel truly alarmed.

“This isn’t—normal, is it?” Hermione said, looking down briefly at her own body before averting her eyes to smile weakly at Gus.

He was staring at her abdomen, but instead all that could be seen was the floor under her. Hermione’s entire pregnant midriff was see-through—or, as Gus reached out a hand to touch her body and felt nothing, completely gone. As though the middle part of her didn’t even exist or had turned into a ghostly, intangible manifestation. “It’s completely abnormal.” His face was set in grim lines.

Back to Albus they went. This time, he seemed prepared to see them. He had spent an inordinate amount of time researching her case because it was an endless source of fascination to him. 

“You’re being called back to your time,” Albus said, returning his quill to the inkstand and standing up. “Your pregnancy should have happened in another time, and the dissonance between realities is forcing your body to be split in half.”

“What?” Hermione said in disbelief. “So we searched for a solution for a year, and this is what will send me back? Pregnancy?” Her wedding ring glinted for a moment on her ring finger, tight on her swollen knuckle.

“It’s not  _ sending  _ you back.” Albus shook his head, his blue eyes for once not twinkling. “It’s  _ ripping you apart  _ .”

“I don’t feel any pain,” Hermione said stubbornly. Part of her wanted to deny that there was something significantly wrong with her.

Albus smiled gently at her and didn’t say anything else. “That’s good. I’m glad to hear it.”

There were things not said in his voice that were nevertheless understood by all of them in the room, even if it were not spoken aloud.

“What can we do to stop it?” Gus asked. He looked like the stereotypical wild-eyed, wild-haired father-to-be, and for a moment, Hermione could only look on him fondly. That was before he said the next thing on his mind: “Abort the child?”

“ARGUS!” Hermione shouted. He merely glanced at her before turning his attention back to Albus.

“It’s not worth it,” Gus said to Albus, his lips a flat, grim line. “Look at how she’s suffering now. We can get rid of it. She’ll be safe then, won’t she?”

Albus shook his head slowly from side to side. “I...don’t think it’s that simple. You see, magical children will be what they will be. They either terminate of their own accord, or they carry to term. Ending its life prematurely against its will has—historically—resulted in very devastating effects.”

She saw the bob of Gus’s throat as he swallowed. “Is there nothing we can do for Hermione?”

There was a split second before Albus responded, and Gus leaped on it. “There  _ is  _ something. Tell me. Tell  _ us.  _ ”

“Sacrificial magic. Some say—it is dark.”

Of course it was. That was always the case. Hermione snorted and shook her head, trying to rise from the low armchair. “Gus, no.”

“Not from you, Mrs Norris,” Albus said, his smile faint and somehow distant. “It’s the sacrifice of magic, the ultimate sacrifice.”

“What does that mean?” she asked uneasily, looking from Albus’s unreadable face to Gus’s strained expression.

“It means that magic is the core, the ultimate element within a wizard. The sacrifice of that is...well, simply put, it’s the most powerful thing a wizard has to give.”

“How do you even sacrifice magic?” Hermione asked. She was reminded of a time much later on when Albus Dumbledore had said that a mother’s love was the most powerful magic in the world. Apparently what Albus believed in changed with the times. She didn’t really know whether to trust in this theory or not.

Albus seemed reluctant to reveal more, but he still responded. “You pull it out of him.” He took a quill from his table, and, using his wand, he excised the calamus from the barbs. The quill came apart in his hand, the calamus attached to the rachis. The feathers fanned across his palm, not breaking apart without the missing spine, but held together by a thin layer of fasciae. 

Albus let the feathered part go, and they floated in the air, looking like wings fluttering eerily without the long stem. With his other hand, Albus twirled the spine in his hand, turning it slowly. It looked like a wand; a very thin, fragile,  _ breakable  _ wand.

Hermione’s mouth was open at the implication of what Albus had demonstrated. She closed it with a snap. “Well. We’re not doing that.” Her tone was sharp and final. She gazed sternly at Gus. “Let’s go home.”

Gus didn’t look at her. His attention was fixed on the thin pale spine in Albus's hand. “What happens to a wizard when you sacrifice his magic?”

“Maybe nothing.” Albus shrugged and waved his hand over the feathers, restoring it back to a quill again. “Maybe everything.”

“Has it ever been done before?”

“Once or twice.”

“And?”

Albus took his time answering. Hermione shifted impatiently in her chair as Gus studied Albus’s face, looking for tells that Hermione could never see. “They survived. It is—not essential to live life with magic, as I’m sure Muggles understand intimately.”

“Gus!” Hermione said harshly. She couldn’t even believe he was  _ considering _ such a thing. She moved slowly across the room to stand next to him, her movements made awkward by her pregnancy. “We’re  _ not  _ considering that.”

When Gus turned to her, there was a light of determination in his eyes that made her heart sink. Hermione had always been called stubborn by her peers, but she was nothing— _ nothing—  _ compared to Argus Norris. He was a force to be reckoned with, sweet and charming to the end, but unbelievably obstinate. “Please,” she said to him, shaking her head and pulling on his arm in supplication. “Please don’t do this.”

“Would you still love me if I were a Muggle?” Gus asked, his voice soft and low. There was something light and unemotional about his tone that contrasted with the tension in his jaw. “Even though you were raised by Muggles, you—seem to dislike Squibs.”

“I do  _ not  _ dislike Squibs,” Hermione said a little huffily with chin thrust out. “People live perfectly full lives without magic.” 

There was a pleased look on his face when she answered that made her stomach lurch. She had, inadvertently, answered his question the way he wanted.

Gently, she curved her palm against his cheek, and he covered her hand with his, briefly closing his eyes at her touch. “Don’t you see? I could never look at you the same way again if you did this.  _ I’m  _ not worth it. You’ve been a wizard for longer than you’ve known me. This is who you are. I couldn’t—  _ live  _ with myself if you did this.”

“You have been feeling better, haven’t you?” Albus asked. His voice cut across the intimate scene, and Hermione and Gus broke apart. “More stable? Less turning into a cat spontaneously?”

“Yes,” Hermione said immediately, shooting Gus a pointed look. “Yes. It was just—this thing that one time.”

“It might be an isolated incident,” Albus said. His eyes were gentle on Gus. “There’s no need to discuss such morbid affairs when we’re soon to celebrate your becoming a father.”

“Right,” Hermione said, taking hold of Gus’s arm and gripping it tightly. “Right.”

* * *

That night, they made love with an urgency that had never happened before. 

Their first time had been fueled by laughter and chatter, with Hermione making the overtures while at every turn Gus asked her if she was sure. That had been followed by more times of togetherness that had eased away the loneliness inside her at being here in a time without anything or anyone known to her. All of her life had been cast behind her in the future. She held onto Gus as her one lifeline, and he gripped her just as tightly in response. It was the two of them, for whatever individual reasons they had, together in this uncertain world of magic and time travel.

“Would you still love me if I didn’t have my magic?” he asked her that night, pausing just above her, holding himself perfectly still at her entrance.

Hermione had never said the words “I love you” to him, because somehow she still hadn't been sure. She had never used the words in her previous life, because  _ love  _ was such an intangible term, and she dealt in specific, logical concepts. 

But she knew she cherished this man like no other; for being there for her when no one was, for wanting to fight her battles for her in a way no one had, for accepting the burden of her appearance even when he had expected something less onerous. 

If she had once blamed him for her troubles, she forgave him it all because of the responsibility and consideration he had shown in manifold ways since. He was not just a man in form alone; he was a man because of his actions, in his commitment to her and her well-being regardless of any binding vow he had made. If she had ever thought her heart immune, her doubts were gone today when she realised just how far he would go to protect her. 

She gripped his face between her hands and pulled him down. He rounded his body gently around her baby bump, and their mouths met. “I love you, Argus Norris. I still don’t know if I believe in soulmates, but if there’s anyone more suitable for me, I don’t know who it could be. You’re it for me.”

There was something tender and soft in his eyes as he gently kissed her on her mouth.

Their tenderness turned to passion as he shifted his body to lie behind her. Their hips moved as one as they stroked each other to higher and higher ecstacy. Through it all, their left hands remained intertwined, their blue marks pulsing against one another as they continued their age-old rhythmic dance.

* * *

When Hermione was eight months along, she suffered the worst pain she had through her entire pregnancy.

She was walking through the house, tidying up various things, and getting things ready for her labour when the pain shot through her abdomen so strongly that she almost fell to her knees. She gripped the table for balance as she tried to ride it out, her eyes wide with the effort and her mouth gaping open with soundless cries.

They had been so careful, and the spontaneous transfigurations had all but stopped after the first trimester. She found that if she ate  _ more  _ , it seemed to settle other aspects of her magic. She regretted it now, as she found it difficult to remain steady on her feet. There was definitely more meat to her bones than ever before.

She attempted to speak while holding the rest of her body very, very still, for fear the pain would return before she was ready. “Gus,” she whispered. “Gus?”

He heard her instantly with the multitude of spells set up around the house. In an instant, there was a crack of Apparation, and he was there at her side, holding onto her arms and her waist. “Hermione?” His voice was steady, but there was a thin uncurrent of alarm attached to her name.

“I think—the baby is coming,” she said. “I need you to help me count the contractions.”

“Alright,” he said, and slowly guided her over to the couch. 

Gingerly, they laid her down, and she sighed with relief when nothing fell out of her when she moved.

“Your stomach,” he said. “It’s glowing.” He gave a short laugh, delighted with the sight. It never failed to amaze either of them, seeing her abdomen light up with a magical aura. They had been told by the Healers that it was uncommon but that it occasionally happened.

“Is it—is it see-through?” she asked, slightly afraid to look down.

“No,” he said, and his shoulders dropped a little in unspoken relief. He was grinning as he pressed a kiss against her temple. “Let’s get you to St Mungo’s just to be safe.”

“Let’s wait until I’m closer to delivery,” she said.

Gus frowned, drawing back to gaze at her quizzically. “But—”

“They’ll just make me go home and wait it out.” That was what they had all heard over and again during the maternity training given to them from St Mungo's.

He nodded, but the crease in his brow showed that he wasn't happy about it. “Alright."

It was too early for childbirth, but she had measured large, and there was always the possibility of it coming earlier. It didn’t happen that day, to both their relief. They had been told of the accompanying nerve pain that seemed to feel like contractions, and it seemed to be the case this time.

Two weeks later, it was an even worse pain that wracked her body. This time, even Hermione insisted on going straight to St Mungo’s.

At the hospital, she was strapped down as regulation demanded, and Gus watched her from the door as the Healers walked around her, performing diagnostic spells. “It’s a very healthy baby,” one of the Healers told her. “I’ve never seen an aura so bright.”

Hermione laughed tightly. “Well, he certainly kicks enough.”

All progressed normally until two hours into her contractions, her abdomen glowed, and the light suddenly disappeared. Gus, holding her hand, glanced down her body.

“What is it?” Hermione asked, releasing his hand as the wave of contractions ebbed.

“The aura,” he said and paused. He lifted the sheet on top of her, and something in his entire body stilled.

“What is it?” she asked, trying to angle her chin down to look. She struggled to sit up but failed.

His throat bobbed, and he held her shoulder to still her movements. “It’s—your body isn’t there anymore.”

“Again?” Hermione cried. She almost felt impatient with her own body, though this explained why she didn’t hurt anymore. She struggled up onto her elbows and peeled the sheet away. He was right. It was such a strange thing, to see that part of your body completely invisible to view. There were her legs, but further up, the region just beneath her breasts to her upper thighs had completely disappeared. Her head dropped back on the pillow. “Oh my gosh. Well, I’m almost relieved.”

She was actually in a state of shock, but the look on Gus's face made her want to explain it away. Anything to keep him from looking so worried.

“This isn’t normal,” Gus said, his fingers seemed to spasm on her shoulder. “Let me get the Healer.”

It was the Healer’s reaction that alarmed Hermione. He stared at her missing middle for a long, long moment without saying anything. Then he cleared his throat. “Let me—call some other people in.”

In a matter of minutes, there were five Healers all gathered around her bed. None of them had anything more substantial to add. They all stared at her midsection, expressions of puzzled bemusement over all their faces.

“I’m getting Albus,” Gus said, looking irritated and grim. “These idiots don’t know anything.”

“Gus!” Hermione said before smiling awkwardly all around. “Sorry, he’s just anxious.”

None of the Healers took offense; they were all speaking in low tones to one another.

It was an hour before Gus returned, and Albus appeared dressed in strange, long purple robes, the kind that often featured on wizards in story books. “Hmm,” Albus said, frowning down at Hermione’s prone figure. “It’s been like this for over an hour?”

Hermione was in no pain whatsoever; just bored. She shrugged. “Approximately.”

Gus ripped back the sheet, deaf to Hermione’s protestations. “No,” he said. “It’s progressed. It’s down to her knees now.”

“That’s...interesting,” Albus said, but the manner in which he spoke it meant anything but  _ interesting.  _ Alarming, perhaps. Albus had always been the king of understatements.

The Healers had left her room to stand outside, speaking in low whispers.

“What does that mean?” Hermione asked, and Gus swung his head to gaze at Albus.

“Perhaps you could step outside with me, Argus,” Albus said.

“No,” Hermione said, struggling to rise again. It felt funny to be able to still move as one entity when one’s body looked as though it had been lopped in half by a magician for a street performance. “Say it in front of me.”

Albus sighed. “The baby is coming. It’s decided to appear in a different time.”

“Could the baby—” Hermione didn’t even know how to frame her question. “Could he simply appear in 2010, and I’ll be left here? Is that possible?” She held her hand out to Gus, who came over to grip it tightly. Something was whirling in Hermione’s mind, and she wasn’t sure what it was. The fear of the unknown was frightening, but she also wanted to know if she would be carried along with the tide and land back in 2010, or perhaps 2012. Her eyes met Gus’s, and she realised he was wondering the same thing.

For the first time since she appeared in this time period, she realised that she belonged here, at his side. She didn’t want to leave him.  _ She really did not want to leave him.  _

For whatever it was worth, she loved him. So much.

It seemed almost impossible that she could fall in love for the first time in her life so late in life. It wasn't the brief, heady love of young teenage infatuation, marked by giggles and dreams of a rainbow-filled future. It had come on her so slowly that she had missed it; missed when she first would reach out for his hand for steadiness, missed the way she looked automatically for signs of humour or pleasure on his face, missed that she had come to utterly rely on him in happiness and grief. She wanted this to go smoothly, not for her own sake, but for his—she wanted  _ him _ to love the baby, even if it would cause her her life. 

What a morbid way to welcome life into the world. 

Hermione swallowed the knot in her own throat. Her hand was crushing his fingers, but he returned her grip just as hard.

“That is unknown to me, I’m afraid,” Albus said softly.

There was no pain, nothing at all. The blankness began to spread higher as they waited. Her chest had become invisible as well. She tried to be brave, but it was hard when she was so filled with panic. 

“Do you,” asked Gus thickly, as though swallowing a lump in his throat, “feel as though you exist somewhere else?”

“I don’t know,” Hermione said, smiling weakly. He didn't return it; his attention fixed on her middle. She felt shaky with fright. Her eyes met Gus’s, and she didn’t realise that she was involuntarily pleading with him to help her. They had all that time to research, but she had been hoping for miracles instead. Why hadn’t she done more? What more  _ could  _ she have done? Pregnancy was the one thing she had never researched in her own time, because she had thought, foolishly, that she had all the time in the world. That she would never be in that position.

The past few months seemed to have flown by just like that. Their surprise pregnancy had led them to a hasty marriage. All the while, she had concentrated her efforts on reading and research into the Time-Turner. It wouldn't have returned her to the future, as it hadn't been created for that. Her case was a little-known anomaly in the wizarding world, kept quiet for fear of people coming in droves to ask her about their own future. Now, she wondered if she could have been more instrumental in all of that—in helping just one or two people instead of remaining so steadfastly neutral and confident of her ability to leave her forever.

Would she have left, if at any time she had found the answer to returning to the future?

The answer stared back at her now, with beautiful, concerned hazel eyes, still the colour of richly translucent tea.  _ No, she wouldn't have been able to. _ He was her life; right here, right now.

She had been such a fool.

"Gus," she began.

He cut her off. “Maybe food will help, Hermione,” Gus said, nodding decisively. A bright light of determination entered his eyes, and he smiled bracingly at her. “I remember it always helped. Albus, can you help suggest anything?”

“Ah…” Albus said. His blue eyes met Hermione’s for a moment and he leaned down to pat her right hand. Then they both froze when she realised she couldn’t feel it, that he had been patting thin air.

Even her arm had disappeared.

She tried again. "Gus, listen." To Albus, she smiled a little and said, "Can you give us a second?"

But Gus wasn't paying attention to her. “Let's go, Albus.” Gus's tone was impatient.

“Gus, wait,” Hermione said, her brows knitting together. Her voice was embarrassingly shaky, but she wouldn’t— _ she wouldn’t— _ cry in front of Albus. No one but Gus would see her tears. “Don't go. It could—it could happen at any moment.”

“Hermione, I love you,” Gus said, patting her shoulder reassuringly. “I’ll just be right outside for a moment. I’ll be back. I promise. I'm a wizard, remember? It'll take two seconds.”

“O...kay,” she said, her breathing shallow. Her eyes were large dark holes in her face, and Gus gave her a very wide smile and gave her a brief hug. Too brief. Her one arm gripped his shirt, but he pulled away.

“It’ll be fine,” he whispered, leaning over to peck her on her temple. “Trust me. I’ll fix this. I'll be right back.” His hand briefly gripped her remaining forearm, his thumb brushing up against scar there, touching the birthmark there. It had always been such a point of comical contention between them.  _ Birthmark _ , she'd say.  _ Soulmark _ , he'd reply with a kiss. Soon, none of it would matter. She would either be back in her own time, or gone forever, to wherever people who messed with time went. 

She watched him go without another word, silently urging him  _ hurry hurry hurry. _ Food  _ had _ helped in the early stages, but would it help now? She didn't fault him for doing all that he could to help her. That was what she wanted, wasn't it? He was trying. It was just that she wished he didn't have to go anywhere. That he could have asked someone else to bring it instead of leaving her alone. 

She sat there listening to the sounds of the hospital staff going about their work day. Quick footsteps, slow ones, pitter-patters. None of them belonged to Gus. She listened and waited as one of her kneeds disappeared, and then the calf. She was disappearing completely, and he wasn't around. 

She waited, and yet he didn't return. The thought struck her suddenly.  _ He was not getting food. _

He was doing something else to help her. She knew it with every fibre of her remaining body.

The spread stopped, suddenly. Hermione gazed down and wriggled the fingers of her right hand experimentally. What a strange feeling. Her thighs were back, and so was her right arm. And then her baby bump. This time, it wasn’t glowing anymore. The Healers had told her that happened also. 

She sighed in relief and wiggled her toes. When the pain of contraction laced through her again, she wondered if it wouldn’t have been better if the baby had been born in another time. 

Another surge of pain. Hermione huffed through it all, fingers gripping the sheets tightly. She muttered to herself.  _ Where the hell was Gus? _

_ He was alright, wasn't he? _

Hermione didn't let her brain consider the alternative. He was fine, fine, fine, and he was on his way back to her.

The pain was unbelievable. Hermione began to groan. Then the groans turned into screams. How could it be with magic at their disposal, they couldn’t come up with pain-killing magical relief?  _ Where was Gus? _

He didn’t come. He never came.

The Healers returned, relieved to see that her abdomen wasn’t glowing. “It’s best they stop before the actual delivery,” her main Healer said. He smiled at her, all confident now that her body parts weren’t invisible anymore. “Let’s get you to the other room and make you ready for delivery.”

“Oh, but my husband…” she said through a raw throat racked with dryness. She was going to cry. She could feel it building behind her eyelids. At any moment, she would burst into hysterical tears, and then the staff, already run around with her case, would stare at her as though she were a freak.

_ My husband.  _ The words felt so strange on her lips. She had never used that term before. She had always so studiously avoided using it, because it wasn't permanent, this situation. She missed her home, her family, her friends in the future. She would find a way to go back. She  _ would _ . Now it seemed so silly, because if she had so believed in her own life, why hadn't she tried harder to return? She had become complacent because she wanted to stay here with him.

_ Was he alright? _

“He’ll be able to find us. Not to worry.”

The pain was now immense, and she couldn’t keep from bearing down every time it came. Her throat was raw from breathing through her mouth. She was transported into the delivery room. 

“Any second now,” the Healer said cheerfully. Much too cheerfully. Hermione wanted to murder them all and then Gus.  _ He was fine _ , she reminded herself. He was fine, and when he appeared, she'd kill him for worrying her.

It happened so quickly after that that Hermione didn’t even know what happened. One minute she was writhing on the bed, and the next she was somehow huddled underneath the bed, yowling.

She was—she wasn’t human anymore. She had spontaneously turned into a cat again. At this juncture in time, as though she hadn't had enough things to worry about. Hermione paced under the bed, yowling for all she was worth. What would happen to the baby if she gave birth in cat form? Would her baby be a kitten instead of a human baby?

Still, there were no answers. The Healers were shouting to each other. Someone peered under the bed to find her there, pacing and scratching the floors. She wanted to escape, but she was surrounded on all sides. Running feet sounded outside. More yelling.

_ Turn back _ , something inside her screamed helplessly. She scratched her own arm in distress, her tail lashing agitatedly. One turn. Two turns. Nothing was happening. Even her body did not feel like hers. What was this place that smelled so terribly and did not feel like home? She paced to the edge of the shade and then back against the wall, where it was safer. So many strange sounds outside. Too many.

She paced again, walking out a pattern that used to mean something to her. Again, nothing happened. She was panting with the effort now, until it seemed to her that it’d be easier and simpler to sit down and do nothing.

Do nothing at all.

Then a voice that sounded familiar. 

“Hermione?”

That name sounded familiar too, but she didn’t identify with that name. She was someone else; she  _ belonged _ to someone else. 

She had been wrong before, though. She had called for someone, and that someone had never appeared.

She was almost afraid to come out. She was so tired.  _ So tired _

"She's not coming out," the same person said. "She always comes when she hears her name." Hermione heard the agitation in that person's voice but she just wanted to hide away. Something had gone very wrong with her, and all the increased volume in noises all around her made her want to hide away, deep into the darkness. The structure above her shifted, and she paced in distress, shrinking ever deeper into the shadows.

“Mrs. Norris,” he cajoled in a singsong voice. She recognised her name that time. Mrs. Norris. That was her name. She was married to Gus Norris, and she loved him.  _ She loved him. _

She slowly peered out from under the bed, and his beloved face appeared.

In her cat form, he smelled the same and sounded the same, and she padded out, winding her body around his legs. He leaned down to pick her up, and she let him. If his hair seemed whiter, she didn’t notice. If there were more lines on his face, she didn’t care. She was where she was wanted, and she purred loudly despite the heaviness in her body.

Someone was speaking in the room. “What happened to you?” a Healer asked, in low aghast tones. He gazed at Gus with wide eyes and a body held defensively away, but she didn’t see anything wrong with him. He was here, and everything would be alright.

There was another man with him, who smelled vaguely familiar, of sugar and lemon drops. He looked tired and weak, different from what she had been used to. His clothing were different also, smelling of ash and alder, and he wore long, scratchy robes that made her want to claw at him. “Mr. Norris won’t be able to perform confinement magic, so arrangements will have to be made.”

“What?” That was the green-robed man who had cajoled her to come out. “I don’t understand. His wife's just turned into a cat in the middle of delivery and he—I'm sorry, sir, but are you alright? You look thirty years older! If not more!"

She didn’t understand either, not even when words filtered through her consciousness that she ought have recognised. 

She protested when they pulled her away, and her baby was taken away from her. There was only the sound of weeping in the room, and she gnawed at one furry arm in irritation at not having any babies to nurse.

She continued to meow even after she was returned to Gus.

There was a low murmur of voices above her.

"You saved her, Argus," said the man in the long robes that she wanted to rip apart with her claws. "She wouldn't be here otherwise. I'm sorry you lost the child."

"I'm not." The voice above her was grim and hard with bitterness, and She raised her furry head to see what had happened. "It was trying to kill her."

A heavy sigh. "Not intentionally."

"I hate children." Her beloved's voice cracked a little, and she butted her head under his hand in comfort. "She's not—she's not pregnant anymore. Why is she still a cat?" 

Silence. Then, “It was the form she took when she first travelled through time. It is possible that the consonance with this—body—is what is stabilising her and allowing her to stay here." There was another pause, and she waited, somehow knowing that this conversation was about her. “She still looks the same as a cat, doesn’t she? The same long, full hair.”

"Yes." The hand was petting her faster now, and she could feel the tension in the arm. She looked up and meowed. “Will Hermione be able to turn back?” One hand stroked the top of her head down her neck. She purred even though she had no idea who or what he was referring to.

“Only time will tell,” the robed man said. He held out something in his hand, a knobby stick. She still recognised it and hissed at the sight of it in his hand when it didn’t belong to him. 

“Keep it,” her owner said, turning away even though she pawed at him to stop. “It’s of no use to me anymore.”

“Argus—”

“I don’t want to see it again!” he said. “It’s fine. I made my own choice. And I’ll still have— _ Hermione _ .” The hand was very hard on her back, and she mewed in protest and tried to wrestle herself away. The hand gentled. “Mrs Norris then,” he corrected, his voice softer.

“Perhaps if you go to Hogwarts with me, we can continue to work on this…”

“I'm not allowed at Hogwarts anymore. Not now. Not with what I am.”

There was a jolt and she looked up to see a consoling hand on her owner's shoulder. “You  _ can  _ . You are not a Muggle. You know so much more than they do. You have one of the brightest minds in wizarding England."

"All for nothing." It was spoken with a voice filled with venom and bitterness.

"They will let you in under my governance. You shall be protected and untouched. As the Squib caretaker of the school, Argus Filch. They will allow you in. By law, they cannot bar you from entering.” 

She twitched at the name. Once that name had meant something to her. Once, a very long time ago...

She didn’t see Gus’s head, now bowed in silent grief, shortly begin to nod.

  
  



End file.
